Loved and Lost: Parity
by Stephyblue
Summary: The sequel to Loved and Lost Dissonance. Fifty years after her wife, Quinn Fabray, gives up her life to save Rachel, the Broadway legend gets her chance to go back and live the life they were destined to.
1. To Do it All Again

A/N: Welcome back to my corner of Faberry and this ongoing epic love story. Thank you again for all your support, and reviews of the first part. I think you will find this story to be very fulfilling, and hopefully lightning will strike twice. Let me know. :)

Also, if you want to keep up with all my writing, feel free to FB me under Stephanie K Author. I'll have some great (huge) announcements soon.

Now - the start of the story at hand.

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Chapter 1

**To Do it All Again**

November 2nd, 2080

The house is quiet, empty of all voices and people. They have been expunged from my world, like the final rattling breath of death. It feels like an eternity has passed, but I know the house was full only an hour ago.

A full tilt celebration for my youngest great-grandson's birthday.

Finally alone, I make my way to the kitchen. I stare at the marble, run my fingers over the veins within it. It was Quinn's choice, the marble. It was an homage to the pop of amber and green in her eyes and the brown in mine. The three colors weaving together, the same way we did.

Once, so long ago.

"Isn't that right?"

I say to the vacant empty room, to the empty house that echoes with silent memories.

There's a glass on the counter that my Celeste and Emily missed and I pick it up slowly, running my hands over it as my thoughts continue.

It's been fifty years of silence so deep not even music could fill it.

"Fifty years, Quinn."

I imagine her voice in my ear as I turn on the faucet.

_I know. It's been far too long._

It makes the silence more bearable, though after so long one would think I would be used to the idea of aloneness. It's self imposed, this torment, because I won't leave this place. They will have to carry out my cold dead body for me to surrender our home. Quinn's and mine. It's the place where she and I shared our lives, raised out children and loved eachother unconditionally.

How could I ever leave it behind? Leave _her_ behind?

There is a part of me that has hoped all these years if she would somehow come back to me. It's part of why I stayed here, why I never left our home, even when it might have been better for me to. I couldn't give up on the thought that if she could, I know Quinn would come back to me.

And so I have stayed just in case, wandering these places that beckon at my memories.

"But you aren't coming love, are you?"

_You know I would if I could._

"I do." I frown at the glass in my hand as the water runs over it. "I wish you would."

I lick my lips and turn to the kitchen table, scrutinizing it. It isn't the same table, but it is the same place I remember. I remember sitting there in the darkness with her. I remember listening to her voice and memorizing it, holding it close to my heart, because I knew in my gut that we were going to be torn apart from one another.

I knew it, in my bones, in my soul - in all the parts of me that died right along with her.

_I stare at the clock at the neon numbers counting down on my world, stealing away my perfection. Quinn's coffee has been ready for some time, but I can't stop stirring it. I don't want to stop because then what purpose will I have?_

_I finally set aside the spoon and stare at it and peer into the deep darkness at the circle of fluid casting into the middle. I can't help but feel this will be the last time I stir coffee into a mug for her. That this will be the final time her coffee pools into a spoon on our counter. I reach out slowly and touch it, spill it to the countertop. It gets on my fingers, and I wipe it on my shirt._

_I never do that, but I would mark it on my soul if I could. The shirt will have to do._

_When I turn, Quinn is staring at me, the amber and green of her eyes clear even in the scarce light. It is the thing I love the most about her, those preternatural eyes. The way they shine and sparkle, how they love as deep and wide as the ocean and hold me captive in a palace, not a prison._

_She will never understand what it feels like to be the recipient of that gaze. She goes back to her writing, her long blonde hair falling softly over her shoulder. _

_It makes it hard to carry the mugs in my hands, seeing the pure grace and beauty of her, and I spill a little as I reach out to set hers beside her. _

"_I'm so sorry, Quinn." _

_My voice breaks over the words because I've ruined what she was writing. Her writing. _

_Her. _

_I've marked the pages that bear the stamp of her soul, transferred by the elegant writing that flows from her hands._

_When she brushes my trespass away and looks up at me, I want nothing more than to pull her into my arms and hide her from the world. The way she has protected me and held me. I want to lock her away and save her, keep her. _

_But I know I can't._

"_Don't be afraid."_

_I swallow hard on the building lump in my throat as I look once again at the clock. As the minutes come down around us like a shattering rainbow. _

_As my perfection slips out of my hands minute by minute._

The glass falls from my hand and I grab for it, just like I wish I could have grabbed for her. It shatters in a cacophony of sound and flashes of light, cutting me when I reach for it on instinct and impulse.

I stare at it blankly, blinking away my memories that melt into reality, and the redness of blood as it drips in the sink.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

I've said those words more times than I can count, more than I've ever said anything in my life. It is the song that gives music to the night for me. The everlasting scar on my heart.

I couldn't save her.

I leave the glass in the sink for tomorrow and wrap my finger with a papertowel.

As I move down the hallway that leads to the back of the house, I stare at the pictures on the wall. I pass them a hundred times a day, and they never cease to stop making my heart ache. I will never become desensitized to my wife and the life we had.

There is one of Quinn and I in Europe for our honeymoon, tanned and young, smiling together. One from our wedding, in candlelight. Another of the four of us, Quinn and I, and our girls. My favorite though, is the one I had put up by Celeste's husband. It's just of Quinn.

Only her.

I stop and stare at it now. It is from our last year together, a picture I took of her smiling at me as she pushed me in our tire swing. She had just released me from her hands, and as I was rocketing away, I took it. If I stare at it hard enough, it almost looks like I'm running into her arms and she is lunging toward me. Under our maple tree, the sunlight paints over here in little patches, glitters of sunlight that rebound off her skin and her smile. It twists into the gold of her hair and leaves me breathless with the beauty of it.

She could always take my breath away.

_I press my head into the niche of her shoulder. It is so new and yet so very familiar, like a freshly varnished stage. I can hear her heart pick up under my ear, and it makes mine beat faster. After everything we've said tonight, if anything more comes out of her mouth, I might not be able to stand it. Tucked here in the backseat of her car, I've never felt so exposed and yet so very safe and loved before._

_This is what love must really be like. I think I'm in love with her. I swallow slowly, feeling her fingers in mine. Even as I think it, I know I'm kidding myself; I don't just think it, I know I'm in love with her._

_"Hey Rachel?"_

_My heart flutters. "Yes?"_

_"Are you wet now?"_

_Oh, man. I blow out a breath as I try to get my muscles to respond to me. Her words make everything turn to jelly. I close my eyes and focus on it, focus on where I can feel it. I reclaim my place laying against her. "Yes. Very."_

_"Do you like this? Feeling like this with me?"_

_I roll my eyes closed and smile against the skin of her neck. I can't help it, can't contain it. "Yes. I don't think I ever could have imagined something as just overwhelmingly hot as this."_

_"How does it make you feel?"_

_Like there's a swimming pool in my pants. I don't know how to be any more clear about it. "Physically?"_

_"Sure."_

_I'm sure she was asking for something else, so I just tease her. "Um, like I'm gonna need a very cold shower tonight."_

_"Do you feel anything else?"_

_"Like emotionally?" It feels like she is probing for something very specific._

_"Yes." _

_Her magical hands press on my lower back, hot against my skin as they knead softly. I groan when the motion presses me into her and I can feel the heat between her thighs, feel that she wants me. And my God, I want her so badly. It makes it hard to put words to higher functioning processes when my body is talking very primal impulses. "It makes me feel cared for, like my heart is full and could burst any moment."_

_"Anything else?" She sounds so hopeful, like she wants me to tell her I love her. And I do. I do so much, but I don't know how to say it. It's the biggest three little words in the world._

_"I feel powerful. I feel weak too at the same time." I lift my head, staring into those big hazel eyes. They smile at me with an unassuming desperation. "What do you want me to say?"_

_I beg silently for her to tell me what she wants me to say. I would give anything to make her feel as good as she makes me feel. I know she won't say it though, not when her expression shifts, her brows coming down in confusion. "Nothing. I just wanted to know how you feel."_

_I lick my lips, drawing courage. "How do you feel?"_

_"The same, excited, full, warm, and totally under your spell."_

_"Nothing else?"_

_She swallows hard enough I see it in the barely existing light between us. "Like what?"_

_"Nothing." _

_I suppose tonight won't be the night then. I smile a little and let it go, because Quinn looks petrified. There isn't any rush, when she's ready, when she wants to, I have no doubt she will tell me what I yearn to hear. I press my head back to her chest._

_I listen to her breathe, listen to the cadence of her heart. I still can't believe I'm laying in Quinn Fabray's arms, even though I have for the last month. It feels like a dream I don't have the right to envision._

_"Rachel?"_

_She says my name with a tone different from any other I've heard. It makes my heart stop. "Hmm?"_

_"I lied, I love you."_

_Her words press all the air out of my lungs. It is what I've hoped to hear and wanted to hear for longer than I'm willing to admit to. It instantly makes my emotions wind, makes my heart thunder as it comes back to life. I squeeze her hand and lift up so I can look at her. I have to see her, have to look into her eyes as I tell her I feel the same. I want her to see it, and know it and feel it in her heart._

_"I lied, too. I love you, Quinn."_

_And when Quinn's smile breaks her lips and splashes in her eyes, I have to kiss her. I can't not. I will never be able to explain it, but in that moment, I feel like I've told her that I loved her a million times. I feel like I've loved her for so long that it is the only thing I've ever known. _

_I swiftly capture her lips with mine as her hand on my back pulls me close enough that I feel unequivocally where it is I belong._

"You were so beautiful."

I reach out and touch her picture, trailing my fingers over it. It hurts, and when I see a thin gloss of red over it, I remember my finger is cut. I wipe at the blood, brushing it away to erase the marring of her perfection.

The bathroom light is stark when it comes alive in the flick of my hand. I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, at the broken expression of pain that hangs there. I'm a shadow of the woman I used to be, before I lost her.

No, before she was stolen from me.

My eyes trace the harsh outlines of skin, where creases and cracks have paved time across my face. I don't miss the flicker of rage that flares beneath the dull brown of my eyes.

It has been so many years and yet not enough time has passed that I don't think back to that day and weep for us. I weep for myself as well, for the young woman I was and the never-ending years of brokenness I have felt since she died.

When the hot sting of tears chokes my throat, I stare at my finger, at the angry line dredged in red. It's funny how something so benign can carry so many similies to my life.

I'm left bleeding.

I'm wounded.

I'm sliding away.

I glance up at my reflection again and judge it with cold calculating eyes. I know where these thoughts go, what dark paths they lead me down.

I've resisted them for a long time because there was always something keeping me. The children, the grandchildren. I am the matriarch of the family, the rock of Gibraltar.

But what do I have to cling to?

I answer my unspoken question, as a rip of pain tears into my chest.

"A memory."

In the incandescent glow of my bathroom I can admit the harsh truths I hide from the world. I raised my children Emily and Celeste with as much love as I could. I did it alone because no one could ever even hope to fill my heart like Quinn had. I watched my girls blossom and grow, selfish in my sorrow when they made their own families and found their own love. It has been hard; I make no qualms about that.

And I achieved my success as well. Just the thought of it makes my head hang in misery. I wish someone would have told me how pale and bittersweet and horrible it was to accomplish your dreams and not have anyone to share it with. I made it to the top, only to turn around and find a void where she should have been.

Where she could have been.

That was the most unsatisfying part of all. The harrowing wind at the pinnacle, the harsh breath of the critics burning me; the pundits unending stream of analysis and the paparazzi's hunt through my scars. No success could ever be worth her.

She was my _one_ and without her I'm missing pieces of myself.

It's a very unnerving realization, one I've had many times.

I was and still am, incomplete. I'm incomplete in the worst way possible, a soul-deep incompleteness that feels like I'm drowning. I have lived my life knowing that, bothered by it at every turn, but I have lived because that is what Quinn would have wanted me to do.

That is what she had died for.

Or at least, that is what I have told myself in the loneliness of my bed when the tears come too hard and too swiftly for me to fight. She gave herself up so me and Emily could have a future. And as her wife, I owe it to her to live the best one possible. Her memory and her sacrifice can't have been in vain.

And in those last moments, when I had looked into determined hazel eyes I _knew_ she was going to do it, even though I didn't want to believe it. I don't know what hurts more honestly, knowing that she loved me enough to sacrifice herself or knowing that she was tortured by it every day of her life up until she told me.

_She is my best friend, my love, my wife. And seeing her now, so torn - so broken, I don't know what to do. I try to do what I can, I warm her fingertips in mine, bring her in from the cold where I saw her standing alone in the darkness. She's had so much dark in her life, too much for such an ethereal woman._

_I help her out of her coat, smooth the snow out of her hair as she stares at me between the motions. Her eyes keep tearing and then untearing, a building of emotion that grows like a song into a crescendo that starts with her words._

"_Rachel." _

_I tighten my hands in hers as I hold her eyes, as the gloss builds against her lashes. She opens her mouth, and when her lip trembles, I touch it softly, smiling to tell her it's okay._

"_I lost you in another life."_

_I didn't expect that. I don't understand what she means. I focus hard on her, trying to understand as I stroke my hand through her hair. "What do you mean?"_

"_I have something to tell you. Something I've been afraid to, but I can't hold onto the secret anymore."_

_The desperation is so clear, so overwhelming that I don't know what to do. Quinn has always been in control, calculated, dedicated, so when her walls break down all I can do is hold her. I pull her to me tightly, pressing my face into the spot on her neck reserved only for me. "Okay."_

_I feel her swallow against the bridge of my nose. "You aren't going to believe me when I tell you this, but I need for you to." Her hands tighten in my jacket, imploring me for things I can give her without hesitation. She will always have my understanding and my support._

_And my love. _

"_You have to believe me, because it's all the truth I swear to God."_

"_Okay." I caress my hands over her face, hushing her lips softly. "I believe you. I believe in you. Tell me everything."_

"_I don't know where to begin."_

_I shrug lightly, "at the beginning."_

_I pull back, giving her a smile, lightening the mood against the way her mouth hangs open like she wants to say something but has no air to bring sound forth from her throat._

"_It all started when I went to your first concert, but it wasn't in this life. I lived another life before this. I fell in love with you there."_

_I swallow hesitantly, and my eyes path over hers and finally fall to my hand in hers as I try to process what she is saying. "But we fell in love in high school. How could it be at my concert?"_

_Unless she didn't love me then? The thought makes me pained in an indescribable way that will seemingly never let me heal._

"_Because I came back and I couldn't stay away from you this time around." I blink as she looks away from me, leaving me to hang on those words. "You should take a seat, because at the very least this is going to be a long story."_

_I swallow again, willing to get tone in my voice because it sounds like she just said that she came back to me. I follow her gaze to the sofa. "Okay."_

_Quinn pulls the coat from my shoulders as I step out of her embrace. I watch her drop it to the chair beside us as I slide past the coffee table, taking up a spot on the sofa. My hands worry with my pajama pants as I stare up at her. _

_She eases a breath. "I love you."_

_I smile softly, willing her to see that I'm here and listening. That I trust and believe her. "I love you too."_

"_I hope you still do after this."_

"_How could I not?" Really? How could I not love the other half of my soul? "Tell me, baby. Just let it go."_

_Quinn takes a deep breath and I do too in response. "I'm going to tell you."_

_I nod slowly. "Tell me."_

"_I am."_

"_Okay."_

_And I wait, but there is nothing I can do to prepare for what she says._

"_On February 19th, 2030, you will walk into the middle of the street and get hit by a car. It will kill you, and me too. It killed me, once already. It already happened and I couldn't live without you. I really meant it went I said it, that you are my world and without you I wouldn't survive. So when I gave up, when I died too, I came back here as a sixteen year old girl. But I remembered everything about our life, our marriage. And that is why I've been so upset, because I can't let it happen again."_

_I can't even begin to digest what she just said. "What?"_

"_I already lived a life with you and I lost you once, but I'm not going to lose you again."_

_My head is shaking slowly, trying to process what Quinn just said. "Wait. I died?"_

"_Yes."_

"_In the future?"_

"_Yes."_

"_And you died too?"_

"_Yes. I know how insane this sounds."_

_I hold up my hand for her to give me a minute. "I just need to wrap my head around this. And you came back to me as a sixteen year old girl?"_

"_Yes."_

_I don't know what to think in that moment, as everything clicks into place. The way I've always felt a secret between us. At how perfect she was for me. At how desperately I yearned for her. At how beautifully she always touched me, like she knew me forever, even our first time._

_Oh, my God._

"_Oh my God." I say it a moment after I think it and lift my eyes to her agony. _

"_Please don't hate me."_

_I blink at her as the constricting pressure in my chest pushes tears from my heart. "Hate you?"_

"_Yeah." She moves toward me, and pauses before reaching out. "Please, please don't hate me. I love you. I came back to you. Always to you, always."_

"_Hate you?" It's the most incredulous thing I've ever heard, next to the words she just uttered. I wipe at my face. "How could I ever hate you?"_

"_Because I lied to you for so long."_

_I reach out and take her hand. "But now you are going to tell me everything, right?"_

"_Yes, I'll tell you everything."_

"_Spare no detail, Quinn." _

"_I won't."_

"_Good."_

I carry her journal with me to bed. I can't read it anymore because the words are so light and my eyes are so incredibly bad. I don't truly need it anymore, because I remember. I remember her and that is all I need. Every word.

Every moment she bled onto the pages, and even more moments that I remember for me.

I turn down the blankets, ease myself down on the edge. I don't bother with a nightgown, my dress is just as well. I turn her book over and over in my hands, touching the places she touched.

"I'm sorry I lied to you too."

She doesn't answer me, because she isn't here.

But I did lie to her. I told her that if I lost her I would find solace in the know that I did everything I could to make her happy. And in another life, in another world that might have been enough, but in this one, there is no peace that comes from that knowledge. By giving her my best, and she hers, it made it worse. It made the pain of losing her that much sharper, because we were perfect.

What we had was perfect, and losing her has been the hardest thing I've ever had to live though.

"Quinn." I stare at the ceiling. "I've waited. I've done your memory a service, and now I'm tired, honey."

I wait for her answer, for her to tell me everything will be all right. It doesn't come though, and I slowly slide into bed holding tight to her journal, her words, and our life.

"Good night, my love."

I touch her pillows, holding tight to the place where she would lay her head beside mine and kiss my cheeks and forehead before I fell asleep. When I focus my gaze there I swear I can almost feel it, almost feel her beside me, guarding me and keeping me the way she always did.

And I pray for the a repeat of that infinite cyclic perfection that brought Quinn into my life again. I say it in three words that will forever hold a special place in my heart. "Always you, always."

And I close my eyes as my tears fall.


	2. The Beginning at the End

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews. :) Hope you enjoy this chapter. I have a question for you... well, more of like a mental musing I would like input on. Would you guys be okay if I just, got really really detailed and graphic in this story? I really want to soak in the good stuff... and I self edit a lot, but would you be adverse to me just being deliciously detailed in *all* the awesome Faberry that will be coming? Basically, if I wanted to write this like no one is looking, would you be opposed?

Let me know.

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Chapter 2

**The Beginning at the End**

It isn't the dimness that bothers me; I have spent enough time in darkness to call it a friend.

It's the silence.

Even though I've spent so much time alone, I've never been able to get used to silence. Living past Quinn, losing those moments that people in love share, still didn't bring silence. Not until the bitter end, anyway.

The house had always been full of sound. Emily and her friends listening to God awful music, Celeste and her playing, singing and laughing together. The joyous cacophony around me had always balmed my heart with it's vibrancy.

Even as they got older, and the music and laughter turned to screams and fights; turned into Emily sneaking out at night and breaking the trellising on the porch and Celeste taking my car without permission - those angry sounds we peeled at one another kept the silence at bay too.

There were also very rare nights where the stubborn prideful girls I raised would slink into my room, invading the silence of my misery. Frightened and tearful from nightmares they would wrap in me and I in them, holding close as eventually the sorrow came like a deafening wall of misery.

I don't think I ever told them how much comfort I took from their embraces, and how grateful I was their tears drowned out the sound of my own. That even though I was alone and afraid and unsure of what I was doing and where I was going, I found strength in them. They filled my life and gave it purpose, they gave sound to the empty.

So, now.

_Now_, in this void I find myself in, this flickering vast nothing just beyond my gaze, I'm frightened because no one is here to alleviate it. It is without end - and no arms can reach out to comfort me. There is just a vacant endless warp of time and the blankness of inexistence.

I wonder if this is what everyone experiences when they die; if this floating boundlessness is the hallmark of death or just a special horrible place for me. Sudden hazy images coalesce around me, superimposed on the maw of timelessness. The pictures solidify for a moment, my bedroom dark, myself laying breathlessly still - and then I'm falling, dropping through the air.

There is no sound, no rush of air, but the fog moves. It races up and away from me, until it hardens into a street, into rain, and I feel a chill pull through me as I remember. I remember the place I dream every night I'll forget.

_People never talk about what happens after the lights fade on a dramatic scene. People never know what happens when the pages of the book closes. As an actress and a singer, I have never even thought about it. My whole life has been built up to the one moment, my one dramatic breath before the final note._

_Or the final line._

"_I will find you no matter where you are and fix everything." _

_This is the world I know._

_It is the world I knew, until her words ping through my heart and destroy it._

"_I'll be waiting."_

_As Quinn's phone goes dead in my ear, I'm completely unprepared for the fact that the lights haven't faded. I keep running, blind to the people I feel near me on the street. _

_I don't understand why the curtain hasn't fallen around me, why the rain continues to tumble down when everything feels like it is over._

_I turn onto Vanderbilt Avenue and all I can hear is the dull buzz of a busted car horn. It sweeps my legs out from under me, all my muscles quitting at once. I slam into the side of a parked car. My panicked moans and hiccuping agony choking me. I struggle to stand, struggle to hold on to my hope. I'm half standing, half sitting, half dead and alive at the same time._

_And all I can think is, why the fuck hasn't the cover closed on the story of my life?_

_Why will it not end?_

_When I get my feet under me, I palm over the hood of the car beside me. The metal is cold. It's wet. It's real. The concrete reality is stark as I stare at a nightmare. My broken beauty._

_My Quinn._

_My - everything._

_I don't see her, not really. I don't see anything. I can't. I stumble forward, hands reaching out to the shattered form that looks like her. It's her jeans, her sweater, her hair. I can't breathe as my misery perforates my lungs. _

_I fall to my knees. I pull her into my arms. _

_I breathe._

_I try to._

_I don't have to look down to know she is dead. I feel in my heart, on my hands as her warm blood drips over me and drains away into the gutter. I hug her to me, trying to stamp out the horrific feeling of brokenness I feel slide around in my arms. Places that should be firm are jelly beneath my hands and poke my palms with shards._

_I look down at her, at her face. I stare at her until I know that not a day will go by that I won't remember it. That I'll will be in my mind forever. I trace her lips and her cheeks with shaking fingers. It grows cold under my touches. I bite my lip until I taste blood._

_Because she'll never be warm again._

"_Please," I beg, "please, come back to me."_

_I keep her close because maybe if I do, she will come back like she did before. If I don't let go, if I don't give up, my warmth will keep her alive. It will bring her back. I fix on her hazel eyes, frozen and dark. Void of her soul they stare blankly at a gray sky. It's horrifying, and impossible. I trace over her long lashes and when they don't flinch away I know it's real. _

_Those eyes will never light up again._

"_No. No, no, God." I shift her, gathering her to look at me._

_To remember me and stay with me._

_And when those eyes stay vacant, when they stay frozen there with rain gathering on them like a film of death, then I scream._

_I scream, offering up everything I have to every god I know, anything - to have her with me. They can take my soul, my life, my everything in exchange for her. For one more hour._

_One more second._

_However, there is no escape from the gut rip of reality as my screams die and nothing happens._

_There is just the steady fall of rain and an end scene that won't come soon enough._

I feel the bite of that day as if it is happening again. I can still feel her blood on me, sticking to me through my clothing. I can still taste it, smell it, it's in every piece of me. And had I known what it would feel like to live without her, I would have selfishly laid down right beside her and died too.

I know I'm crying, I must be, though I can't feel it. I try to reach up and wipe at my face, but I can't. I can't see my hands, I can't move. I just fall again, like a trap door has been pulled. It rips me away from the place where my heart shattered.

It leaves me in the dark of a stage.

_I've stood on stages before, God knows, I have. I've felt nervous tingles of expectation pinch me before too. But wow, if my heart beats any harder I'm going to have a heart attack. _

_I've never been so nervous in my life._

_Probably because nothing has ever mattered this much._

_I'm holding Quinn's hand as she pulls me tighter into her arms, sliding that warm palm to my back. She always does this, puts her hand on my lower back, guiding me. I love it, it feels so safe, so perfect. Her hands are always so warm and with how it is pressed to me now, it radiates all the way through me. I nuzzle her softly, soaking in this moment between us. "I've spent a lot of time thinking about the future and the past, these last few months. And I have something I need to tell you."_

_I don't know why she instantly thinks it's something bad cause I literally hear her frown right after I finish speaking. I reach up slowly to caress away the worry lines she's getting in her forehead. I don't even need to look up to know they are there, but I do anyway, giving her a soft smile to take the fear out of what she thinks I'm going to say. _

"_It's all good, so don't frown." _

_I say it too, just to be certain she believes me._

"_Okay."_

_Oh wow, when she looks at me so intensely I forget everything I was planning on saying. Her eyes bounce over mine, waiting._

_I really wish my brain would work. _

"_It's graduation time, so I think it's pretty normal to catalogue your life, figure out what you want in it - figure out what path you want to walk."_

_Quinn interrupts my meager attempt at ramping up to what I really want to say to her. "Did you figure it out yet, because you don't have to. You have so much time to make those big decisions."_

_I shake my head, putting tender fingers over her lips before she can sidetrack this conversation. I've had more than enough time to think about the decision I've made regarding her, and I have to make sure she knows it. I love her more than I've ever loved anything and it's time that she know that and be honored in that way. _

"_Let me talk. Don't say anything yet Quinn."_

_My hands are shaking when I go for the necklace I'm wearing. It isn't that I think she will say no to me when I propose to her, it's that I want everything to go perfect. Okay, so there is a tiny part of me that is worried she might say no, but most of my anxiety is over the fact I've dreamt about doing this for the last three weeks and I always imagine dropping the ring._

"_As I was saying, I've been thinking about what I want from my life. What path I want to walk." I finally get the latch free and ring in hand, I try to be nonchalant about freeing it from the chain. Quinn's eyes are everywhere, so I shake my hair back into place, drawing her attention. "I know what I want and I never told you."_

_It's true, I never told her explicitly what I wanted even after I made her divulge everything over dinner on new years._

"_Never told me what?"_

_She sounds like she knows what is about to happen. Her voice is warm, trembling. Quinn's eyes are on my necklace again and I use my free hand to nudge her jaw softly, bringing those amber eyes back to me. "That I want you."_

_It never ceases to amaze me how surprised she looks when I say that to her. It still blows my mind that Quinn Fabray looks at me like I'm something important and special, when really it's the other way around. "Don't look so surprised. I have said those words many times."_

_She smiles then, our secrets so deliciously - ours. "But not like this."_

_I smile knowingly. "No, never like this."_

"_I think back to the things in my life, my dreams. Things that propelled me forward when I was younger, my dreams of Broadway, and they seem so muted now in comparison."_

"_Comparison to what?"_

"_To my dreams with you." I say it with barely veiled surprise, because she must know that everything in my life just absolutely pales to her. "To the future I want now."_

_Quinn's jaw unhinges a little as her eyes widen. I think she is finally understanding what I'm saying. "You make me happy, happier than a stage, than a curtain call, that a standing ovation. And I've done what you said. I've enjoyed those things, tasted those things. You taught me I could have both, and I have it." _

_I glance around at the stage where we met again, at this hallowed place where I will forever remember her and nothing else. it's funny how I had spent all day in a dizzy over the article, only to now turn around and realize, I don't even remember what it said. _

_Because of her._

_Because of the beautiful woman standing before me._

"_Well," I shrug. "I will have it."_

_When she says yes, I'll have everything I need._

_I hesitate a glance back at the stump. "Come with me."_

_I think Quinn stops breathing, she literally just follows after me like she's forgotten how to function. _

"_Please sit."_

_She does, facing me until her eyes go to my hand once again. I hand the chain over to her because now the ring is free and if I don't pass her the chain I'm going to drop it, and the ring and everything will be a mess. I swallow hard, willing strength in my voice. "I've gone through this speech a million times in my mind. I recite it when I'm riding the subway, when I'm in the shower, when I'm falling asleep."_

_I don't tell her that I say it to her when she's asleep. That I whisper it into her dreams almost every night because I want her to know always how much I love her. I lick my lips, staring down at Quinn as she slides her thumb over the gold in her hand like she's testing to see if it's real._

_I slide to my knees before her. Quinn makes a sound then, as her eyes come to mine. I can't describe or place it, but it is something vulnerable and beautiful and so very tender. She looks so young suddenly, like she's sixteen again and falling in love for the first time. It's in her eyes, in how they widen and in her lips as they tremble._

"_Lucy Quinn Fabray, I knew you were it for me when I was sixteen years old. I knew you were the one when you kissed me that first time in the practice room, when you became my best friend and my only love." My voice strains past the lump in my throat. "When you taught me that love was just as much about me as it was you, and made me understand that anyone who would steal away my future wasn't the right person for me."_

"_Rachel."_

_God, just hearing her say my name like that, makes my eyes tear to the point where I can't really see her anymore._

_I press on, valiantly, despite the fact I know I'm gonna blink and my mascara is going to smear and I'm going to look terrible. I promised myself I wasn't gonna cry._

"_Quinn, you were the one when I came out here, when the days were hard and the nights were long. It was you when I missed you everyday."_

_I did. I missed her and thought about her everyday. It drags my tears down my cheeks, clearing my vision enough for me to see the tears in her eyes too._

"_Always you, always." I swallow hard, recalling that scribbled mantra between us. "It has been, and will always be - always you, always."_

_She says the cutest thing I've ever heard her say, with the most desperate tone I've ever heard her say anything in. "Say it, please. Ask me, so I can say yes."_

_I give her a smile, as the pressure eases in my chest. "So," I brush away at the tears on my face, hoping to wipe away some of the mascara that must be there too. "So, make me the happiest person in the world. Say it will always be you, always - be my wife?"_

_I don't even realize I'm holding the ring before her until she says yes, and I'm sliding it up her finger, and then she's kissing me and pulling me closer. _

_My brain finally catches up then and I realize she said yes. Quinn said yes, to me. I smile so big I can't even kiss her then. _

_I'll never stop smiling for her._

This time the force of the image shattering feels like a physical blow to me and I wallop in a breath of air, or attempt to, before I'm assaulted by another moment hardening around me.

_She's lifted me to places I never thought I would find. I always knew I would have the stage, but I've been so hopeless in love. I had a boyfriend once, for a hot minute, until we kissed and I didn't feel fireworks. It's always been my belief that if you are meant to be with someone, you should feel that sizzle and sparkle of excitement._

_I was never able to find it, until I fell in love with Quinn. _

_Then not only did I feel fireworks, I felt a stirring in my soul. She has been my salvation, from life, from pressure, from my own insecurities. In her arms I've found the most beautiful moments in my life. I know I may be young and apparently stupid, but I thought we were going to be together for the rest of our lives. _

_I really did._

_So when Quinn calls me a love sick puppy; tells me that she doesn't want me, it feels like a nuclear bomb goes off in my chest. Those words actually take every single piece of me and blow it to smithereens. _

_I can't breathe, I can't believe it. _

_But she said it. _

_I can still see her lips carving the words even though they are still. The motion repeats unendingly, like a skipping music track, while I try to find the words I want to say._

"_Love sick puppy?" _

_She doesn't move, doesn't breathe. Quinn, the girl I love, looks at me with the coldest eyes I've ever seen. No, she looks at me with eyes as cold as she used to. She stares at me like I'm some unimportant, disgusting thing that has intruded on the perfection of her world._

_And maybe I have, but God - I believed everything she said._

"_Love sick." I say it again, because I still can't process what she just said to me. That mouth that I love, that has loved me and whispered into my ear the sweetest things I've ever heard, just said that to me. She doesn't want me anymore, and I don't know what I did._

_What did I do?_

"_I'm sorry, Rachel, but this has been fun, I mean right?"_

_When she says that, when she almost seems to laugh about it, it makes everything hurt. "Oh God." I put a hand to my side to cover the pain I feel there, like she punched me in the gut, but was holding a knife in her hand. It steals all the breath out of me and I lean on the counter, staring at my acceptance letter. At my hope for a better future for the two of us. "Don't do this. Not to us, not when we-"_

_Are soulmates._

_But I'll never give her the satisfaction of thinking I cared this much. Never. It was all a game, a sick game._

"_Not when we, what?" She asks innocently._

"_Nothing." I glance at her, at the expression on her face. It drives me absolutely mad that I want to hate her for what she has done, but I can't. And though I'm hurt and angry, there is still a part of me that doesn't believe her caustic words. I'll never believe that the girl I've shared so much with, could ever be so cold. Not when I've seen what I've seen. If this was nothing but a game it would have ended long before we shared what we've shared._

_That thought renews my desperation. "Please Quinn, please. Please don't do this to me, to us. Please, oh God, please. It will kill me, it will break my heart." I press a hand to my chest, holding tight to the places where she has touched. _

_She turns away. "I have to get my stuff."_

_I know I have to do something when she says that. If I never get the chance to speak to her again, what will it matter anyway. She already has enough blackmail to kill me, what does one more pathetic attempt matter? I grab for her arms, holding her still before Quinn can leave. "Please, look at me." _

_I honestly didn't think she would, but she does, staring at me with a pained expression. her teeth grab at her lip, holding tight to the skin there. She swallows over and over, her eyes bouncing over mine. "We can never find this again, this right here, this magic."_

_She doesn't move, she stops breathing when I say it. It feels like she understands me, that she realizes I would give anything up for her, that I honestly truly love her. And if she leaves, I don't know if I could ever - I don't think I can ever trust her again. Not in the way I do now. _

"_Quinn."_

"_What?" Her voice is so angry, so cold. I can't take it anymore. And I cry._

_When I blink away my tears, she is crying too. And I don't get how she can say such mean things and yet, cry about me crying. Only people who love you do that, right?_

"_You still love me." I can't help but reaffirm it, and i wipe at her tears. Her cheeks are so soft, her eyes so bright green when she's emotional. I keep wiping, keep staring at them as they pour emotion._

_And for a split second, she opens her mouth and takes a breath like she is going to say something monumental. It feels like she is going to tell me she loves me, and went crazy for a minute or she is going to take it all back._

_But it's gone in a breath, and her eyes drain of the warmth I saw. "I just think this is so sad and pathetic." Her hands roughly pry mine away from her. Her hands actually hurt around my forearms. They ache from the cold of her touch. "You are so sad."_

An eternity of misery, that is what this is.

I have figured it out.

It is God's torture and torment to remind me that life is something too precious to just give up. I have done something terrible in giving up the fight; I realize that now as I'm pinned between the harsh images of my existence and the muted gray of purgatory.

This time as I fall, I pray I hit the bottom of something, pray it ends. I can't stand to see another moment of pain between us, not when I know everything now. Not when I can set aside my personal agony to see her sacrifices too.

It feels like forever, like eternity that I spiral through the abyss, dragged down in an undertow like I'm drowning. And then suddenly, from below, I see light.

It grows beneath me until it is all I can see, all I can feel.

Then - like the rip of lightning from a cloudless sky I break through a wall of nothing. I'm doused in sunlight, and grit my teeth as lights flash, popping like a photography lens behind my eyes. It's inside my head, inside my body, screaming pain through me like a whip crack.

Everything solidifies around me as I stare up at a sunwashed ceiling. Colors shift almost instantly, turning more vibrant, clearer. My vision sharpens, until I can see the texture in the plaster, see detail I haven't seen in more years than I can remember. A thrum of energy replaces the exhaustion I've seemingly always felt. When I feel softness under me and smell my dead father's cologne like a whisper from another world, then I cannot take anymore.

I sit up.

That's when I see my reflection. And the instant I do, I scream.


End file.
